Social Inclusion is a positive phrase covering a range of policies aimed at promoting equality of opportunity, maintaining Social Cohesion, building Social Capital and minimising social exclusion.
This range of policies has both political and economic drivers.
The political driver is based on the post war consensus that through the Welfare State, governments should aim to provide a minimum quality of life for all its citizens/residents—this minimum has been a moving standard often related to national averages. Commitment to this principle is frequently deemed to have reached its nadir at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s comment “There is no such thing as Society”. Under New Labour, whilst entertaining alternative methods of delivery, a commitment to “social inclusion” is a cornerstone of policy. Social Inclusion emerged as a current phrase out of the work of the Policy Action teams during New Labour’s first term of office.
Social Exclusion is closely associated with (relative) poverty: termed as ‘economic exclusion’. It is also often associated with particular groups of people: people with disabilities, people from ethnic minority communities, people with poor health, young people, the elderly, women etc. It is also associated with certain regions, cities and neighbourhoods.
The economic driver stems from an analysis, which identifies lower rates of participation in the formal economy and lower rates of business start up with economic under-performance. The analysis identifies high “social capital” as a key ingredient to economic success in the global “post-industrial” society. It also identifies “social exclusion” as a major and structurally threatening cost to Government.
Of a £395bn annual spend by Government, £110bn is in Social Security and if elements of the Health, Education, Law and Order expenditure, and Housing and Environment bills are added to this, it could be argued that the costs of social exclusion account for around half government expenditure.
The structural threat comes from the fact that the costs of “social exclusion” tend to rise when the economy performs less well. The Treasury is therefore constantly seeking ways to shift from this expenditure, regarded as “sticking plaster”, toward more productive investment.
Social Inclusion therefore is a positive phrase covering wide range of policies that target resources on relatively disadvantaged groups or places. Fundamental to social inclusion is economic inclusion.
The term Social Economy is used to describe economic activity not accounted for by the private or state sectors. This includes the activities of the not for private-profit sector, voluntary and community organisations, charitable organisations, mutual societies, cooperatives, social firms and development trusts.
The boundaries between the Social Economy and the other sectors are dynamic.
We may well ask the following:
• Are major mutuals such as Standard Life really part of the Social Economy?
• Housing Associations are generally included because they are ‘off balance sheet’ – that is their borrowings are not included in the Public Sector borrowing requirement – but what of other quangos?
• What about parts of the Voluntary sector, which, while important in terms of reducing social exclusion and building social capital, have relatively little economic impact?
• Does the work of cultural organisations fit into the definition of the Social Economy?
A diagrammatic illustration including the “overlaps” is perhaps helpful:
The “Social Economy” is important for two reasons: its growth and its ability to enhance social inclusion.
Growth – the continuing debate about what is and is not included in the definition of the Social Economy makes the measurement of growth difficult. However, there is a consensus that solutions from within the social economy are growing to meet the needs of society in a wide range of fields including housing management, regeneration, skills development, childcare, environmental management.
Social Inclusion— the work of the organisations within the Social Economy are often focused on service delivery to those groups, or in those places, where social exclusion is deemed to be high.
Social Enterprise – the DTI’s current working definition is:
“Social Enterprise is a business with social objectives. It combines entrepreneurial skills with strong social purpose. Profits are re-invested in the business or in the community, offering the possibility of effective, sustainable self-help leading to wider benefits.
“It is probably true to say that Social Enterprise is a way of ‘working’ rather than a clear sector or sub sector of the social economy.”
The term is also associated with “Social Entrepreneurs” – enterprising individuals active within the social economy – and sometimes also extended to include support for individuals wanting to establish for profit businesses from socially excluded groups or areas. Use of the term Social Enterprise has subsumed “community enterprise” in the current debate.
Community Enterprise is a major subset of social enterprise and shares the same combination of entrepreneurial skills and strong social purpose. Community Enterprise is distinguished however by its focus on a community of place or interest and delivers local services to local people—often involving also the employment of local people.
Development Trusts are a model of community enterprise joining up the delivery of a range of local services.
Social Capital – used to describe a positive social structure and is deemed to be a key ingredient in sustaining successful economic development in the “Knowledge economy”. Positive Social Capital indicates not only high skill levels; but also an engagement with wider networks and an understanding of the interdependence of activities within a complex society (an example might be the instinctive way that traffic slows to allow an ambulance to pass).
A distinction is sometimes made between a group’s internal social capital, for instance, within an ethnic minority community, and its external social capital, being its diverse informal contacts with wider networks. Social Capital is sometimes used as the opposite to social exclusion.
Social Cohesion—a term in current use stemming from the Ouseley/ Cantle/ Denham reports following the riots in the summer of 2001. This term has been used following an analysis which criticises an approach to reduce social exclusion by focusing on building ‘internal social capital’ without addressing the need to establish “external social capital”. The phrase from the Cantle report which captured this allusion was, “parallel lives”.
